Not enough renewable energy to get to 5 mt of green hydrogen

In a recent seminar in Chennai, the National Chemical Laboratory, which is a public funded research lab, based in Pune, outlined what it would take to produce 5 mt of green hydrogen. 

According to the lab’s Director, Dr Ashish Lele, 5 mt means the following: 

1. * 32 GW of electrolyser capacity (which is at sharp variance with the ‘15 GW’ mentioned by India’s energy minister, R K Singh 

2. * 115 million liters a day of water 

3. * 90 GW of solar and 38 GW of wind (the government of India has generally said ‘125 GW of renewable energy’) 

4. * 340,000 hectares of land 

5. * $86 billion of investments 

These, Lele said, would help avoid 30-40 million tons of carbon dioxide (government of India puts this at 50 m t) and save Rs 60,000 crore ($7.3 billion) of natural gas imports (government of India said ‘save Rs 100,000 crore [$12.15 billion] of fossil fuels.)  

India today has 62 GW of solar and 42 GW of wind, or 104 GW between the two. If 125 GW is to come up, by 2030, only for electrolysers it means doubling of existing capacity in 7 years—18 GW a year. This is a very tough task, nearly impossible, especially given that many of the current policies are not conducive for renewable energy. 

 

Indian cabinet approves $2.35 billion grant for green hydrogen, aims 5 mt by 2030

On January 4, 2023, the Indian government announced its National Green Hydrogen Mission, the core of which is the financial support by the government for setting up electrolyser plants, producing green hydrogen, pilot project, research and development and other “mission components” The total outlay for this, which will be dispensed over the years, is Rs 19,400 crore, or $ 2.357 billion. 

Calling it ‘Strategic Interventions for Green Hydrogen Transition’, or SIGHT, the government said that the mission would engender green hydrogen capacity of 5 million tons by 2030—5 mt is the current production of hydrogen in India today, though not through ‘green’ means. 

The government reckons that the program would make way for an estimated $86 billion of investments in the green hydrogen sector, produce 600,000 new jobs, reduce fossil fuel imports of $12 billion in value and annually avoid 50 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions. 

A press release of the government recognizes that there is more work to be done from the government’s side. It promises to do them in due course. “The Mission will facilitate demand creation, production, utilization and export of Green Hydrogen.  Under the Strategic Interventions for Green Hydrogen Transition Program (SIGHT), two distinct financial incentive mechanisms – targeting domestic manufacturing of electrolysers and production of Green Hydrogen – will be provided under the Mission.  The Mission will also support pilot projects in emerging end-use sectors and production pathways.  Regions capable of supporting large scale production and/or utilization of Hydrogen will be identified and developed as Green Hydrogen Hubs.” 

“An enabling policy framework will be developed to support establishment of Green Hydrogen ecosystem.   A robust Standards and Regulations framework will be also developed.  Further, a public-private partnership framework for R&D (Strategic Hydrogen Innovation Partnership – SHIP) will be facilitated under the Mission; R&D projects will be goal-oriented, time bound, and suitably scaled up to develop globally competitive technologies.  A coordinated skill development program will also be undertaken under the Mission.” 

 

 

Maire Tecnimont Group and NTPC Sign MoU to develop green methanol project in India

Tecnimont Private Limited, Indian subsidiary of Maire Tecnimont Group, has signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with NTPC, India's largest power generation company. The objective of the MOU is to jointly evaluate and explore the possibility to develop commercial scale Green Methanol Production facilities at NTPC project in India, says a NTPC press release.

 

The Green Methanol Project involves capturing carbon from NTPC power plants and converting it into green fuel. Green Methanol has a wide range of applications, including serving the chemical industry as a base material, being used as an energy carrier for storing electricity generated from renewable sources, and serving as a transportation fuel. It is also considered as a substitute fuel for maritime fuel applications.

 

Alessandro Bernini, Maire Tecnimont Group and NextChem CEO, commented: “This collaboration with a leading player such as NTPC represents another strategic milestone for Maire Tecnimont Group in its roadmap to consolidate its industrial footprint as technology provider and energy transition enabler for the Indian natural resource transformation market.”

 

About Tecnimont Private Limited

Tecnimont Private Limited (TCMPL) is a subsidiary of Maire Tecnimont Group and serves as the Group’s centre of Engineering excellence for India. With more than 2,000 employees, TCMPL is headquartered in Mumbai and has support offices in New Delhi, Middle East, Abu Dhabi and Malaysia. It is a leader in Engineering and Main Contracting for the natural resources transfo  rmation industry. With a legacy now spanning six decades, TCMPL has exhaustive experience in executing more than 400 projects globally.

 

Maire Tecnimont S.p.A.

Maire Tecnimont S.p.A., a company listed on the Milan Stock Exchange, heads an international industrial group that is a leader in the transformation of natural resources (plant engineering in downstream oil & gas, with technological and execution competences). Through its subsidiary NextChem, it operates in the field of green chemistry and the technologies to support the energy transition. Maire Tecnimont Group operates in about 45 countries, through approximately 50 operative companies and about 9,300 people. For more information: www.mairetecnimont.com.

 

Vibrant energy wants to plunge into green hydrogen

Hyderabad-based Vibrant Energy, a renewable energy company with operating capacitiy of 132 MW and in-pipeline capacity of 3 GW, is "actively exploring opportunities of delivering green hydrogen and green ammonia to our clients," the company's CEO, Srini Viswanathan, has told Mercom.

"It works as a natural extension for many of our customers who are potentially buying massive amounts of green energy from us to simply allocate some of it to run electrolyser to generate green hydrogen," he said.

"We can pivot a lot of industrial hydrogen to green hydrogen and at some point in the future, even pivot our large truck transportation mechanism to hydrogen, we can save a significant amount of foreign exchange for the economy and that will be a huge accretive scenario for the country," he said.

                                           Photo credit: Vibrant Energy website

Recently, Vibrant Energy announced its deal with Amazon, under which it would sell green power to the tech giant. Vibrant energy is a subsidiary of Macquarie's Green Investment Group. 

Indian parliament upper house clears new law that will help develop hydrogen, non fossil fuels

The Rajya Sabha, the Upper House of India's Parliament, on December 14 passed the Energy Conservation (Amendment) Bill, 2022, into law. It only awaits the formalty of the President of India's signature.

Though the law is titled Energy Conservation, the amendments all push the country in the direction of non-fossil fuel economy. The essential features of the amended legislation is the ushering in of a domestic carbon market in India, sweeping-in more buildings into the ambit of a green buildings code and mandating major consumers to consume non-fossil fuels. It is in the last part that green hydrogen comes. 

According to the University of Oxford, the nation is the world’s second largest producer and consumer of nitrogen-based fertiliser, a category that includes ammonia made from H2, gobbling up around 17 million tonnes per year, writes Rachael Parkes, in HydrogenInsight, a magazine powered by Recharge. And this figure is only set to rise, Parkes says and quotes the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) estimates that the Indian fertiliser sector's demand for H2 (either fossil-based or renewable) will reach 7.5 million tonnes per year by 2050.  Today, Indian-made fertiliser is produced almost exclusively from grey hydrogen derived from unabated fossil gas, and is heavily subsidised by the government. In fact, for the past three years in a row, New Delhi has subsidised fertiliser production to the tune of 1.05trn rupees ($12.7bn), a figure that is set to rise in line with skyrocketing international gas prices. 

Even a mandate for just 1% of nitrogen-based fertiliser production to use a feedstock of renewable hydrogen would generate demand for around 170,000 tons of green ammonia per year, based on today’s production figures. 

Power Minister R K Singh has repeatedly said, including in the Parliament recently, that the government would bring in a mandate upon large consumers--fertilizers and refineries to start with--an obligation to purchase a prescribed percentage of green hydrogen for their operations.

Ohmium to supply PEM electrolysers to NovoHydrogen

Ohmium International, Inc., a green hydrogen company that designs, manufactures, and deploys Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) Electrolyzers, has finalized an agreement with NovoHydrogen, a leading renewable hydrogen project developer, to provide its PEM electrolyzers. 

Ohmium is an American company whose only manufacturing plant is in Bengaluru, India.

The electrolyzers will be used to provide 120MW of green hydrogen capacity to an Independent Power Producer, to be used as a zero-carbon replacement fuel for a portion of the gas usage at their peaking power plant in New Jersey. Ohmium's unique interlocking modular PEM electrolyzers provide a safer, modular, flexible, easy to install and maintain alternative to customized electrolyzers.

Matt McMonagle, NovoHydrogen's CEO, has observed that "Ohmium's leading edge, modular, cost-effective PEM electrolyzers provide us with the perfect scalable solution for green hydrogen applications. We can expand capacity over time as the projects progress.

Ohmium manufactures standardized interlocking modular PEM electrolyzers that produce pressurized high-purity hydrogen. Individual electrolyzers can be stacked to significantly reduce installation and maintenance costs while enabling unlimited configurations of deployment sizes. Ohmium's proprietary electrolyzer stack technology can sustain a differential pressure across the membrane without compromise, which enhances cost-effective operation.